


Insecurities

by transtwinyards



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, No Spoilers, it's all very introspective, takes place during The Raven Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:49:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6501442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/transtwinyards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam thought that maybe the psychics had served to amplify too much of each of them.</p><p>Conveniently for Gansey’s quest, that was what they needed, but this was not where they needed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insecurities

The trip home from 300 Fox Way was charged with tension that Adam hadn’t encountered since their trip to Monmouth after Ronan’s incident. It was not an event that was too long ago, but today, it felt like no time. Adam felt it like he smelled the whiff of mint from Gansey wafting over the gasoline and the stale air of the car. Gansey was agitated but composed, as he always was. Ronan was agitated but showing it, as he always was.

Adam was neither, or he tried to think he was. He was agitated and determined and raw, but he never liked losing control over any given situation. That included the silences.

The psychics were too accurate in their guesses.

Gansey’s grip on the wheel was loose, and his thumb was scraping at his bottom lip again. There was tension on his square shoulders, the tension Adam had become familiar with. Inside the reading room, he’d seen Gansey slip into political-mode, into scholar-mode. He’d also seen Gansey slip into boy-mode.

Adam thought that maybe the psychics had served to amplify too much of each of them. Conveniently for Gansey’s quest, that was what they needed, but this was not where they needed it.

Ronan’s built frame, from Adam’s vantage in the back seat, was loose in the way that seemed too intentional to be real. For all of Ronan’s pride about never lying, he seemed too well-crafted on how he behaved, too intentional. Lying by omission.

Ronan hadn’t seemed too agitated when they’d picked the younger teen up from Monmouth earlier. Disgruntled maybe, he’d grunted and growled about having to feed his new pet bird. Adam hadn’t seen it yet, but he thinks that maybe he will soon. On the way back to Monmouth, Adam thought that maybe he was shit out of luck.

Ronan looked about ready to retreat in on himself.

“I heard you have a pet now, Lynch,” Adam said over the roar of the Pig’s engine, which sounded just as agitated as the rest of them.

Ronan’s frame loosened a bit more, and it looked like he was melting into the leather seats beside Gansey. He shrugged and leaned back to flick his sharp gaze over at Adam. He looked about ready to set something on fire, or about ready to drive Adam around on a moving dolly.

“Noah’s been with us for two years now,” Ronan replied, the empty sharp smile settling back on his face. “You know that, right?” Gansey glanced at them. Adam thought it looked forced.

“Noah doesn’t need to be fed every two hours,” Gansey pointed out. “And you made that joke already.”

Adam huffed, and almost smiled, if it wasn’t for the bruise forcing the reflex down with a numb pressure. He carefully kept his thoughts away from what happened last night, and a lifetime away from what happened at the backyard merely hours ago.

Ronan’s gaze flicked from Adam, then to Gansey. “I was drunk.”

“That’s barely any excuse.”

The tension finally slipped out of the vehicle, and this time, he smiled.

* * *

 

Ronan clenched and unclenched his fists, trying hard not to scratch at his tattoo as he stared at Chainsaw’s nest in the corner of the bed.

It was unfair, he knew. He could have told Gansey then and there, where Gansey was on the safe side, where Ronan was infinitely relieved that he had not been stung by that wasp. He could have told Gansey.

But he chickened out, spouted out shit about something starting, threw out his jealousy about Adam, and though it was both true, it was still incredibly unfair.

He counted his breaths as he took them.

 _A secret killed your father, and you know what it is_ , the psychic woman had told him, withdrawing her fingers from his tattoo. He remembered her face, the pure confusion of her expression, the distractingly ridiculous plum of her lips. _What are you?_

He felt his throat tighten, his breath hitch again.

_What am I?_

A squeak alerted him that Chainsaw was awake again. He scrambled over to her corner of the bed, carefully picked the nest up so that Chainsaw wouldn’t wake Gansey again, not after that incident.

He shushed her, rocking her in his arms. “I’m right here, Chainsaw,” he whispered. “You’re fine.”

He didn’t fall asleep, but it was peaceful, and he wished it could always be this peaceful, that it would always be as peaceful as when he cradled Chainsaw in his hands. His dreams, he wished, should always start and end like this. His life, he wished, should be just as peaceful.

He looked at Chainsaw and saw a part of his secrets integrating itself in the life he kept quiet to about it.

He looked at Chainsaw and saw nothing but hope.

 

* * *

 

There were too many signs pointing at the possibility of _it_ , but Gansey steadily ignored it.

The corpse road, his voice on the night of the procession, the Death card, his involvement with the lying psychic’s daughter. It all added up, but for once Gansey didn’t want to touch this particular coincidence, didn't want to even consider it.

What he, instead, touched on was what the psychics could be hiding from him. What he touched on was what he could salvage that was easier than having to ramble up enough respect to speak with the psychics again.

He sighed as he copped around his sheets, grabbed his phone, and contacted Helen. He stared at the screen as it rung.

When it picked up, he brought the phone down and held it a few inches from his ear.

“Dick, nice to hear from you.” Her voice, again, was a relief to hear, but more now that they weren’t talking about trivial things.

“Helen, when do you have time to drop the chopper off?”

“Ooh,” Helen taunted, “Straight to business now, are we. Depends, why do you need it?”

“We need further information, so we’re exploring the mountains from the top this time,” he summed up. Knowing Helen, she was bound to have been busy before this.

“Hmm, I’ll fly by tomorrow,” she said, which made Gansey bristle a bit.

With an indignant huff, he stood to shove his feet into his shoes, still not bothering to get up from bed. His eyes flicked towards Noah’s door, and he saw that the door was open wide, showing an image of a blurry machine and an equally blurry pristine bed.

Where was Noah?

“Helen, I know how to fly a chopper,” he told her.

The signal made Helen’s laugh sound like a bunch of hissing noises in Gansey’s ear. “Yes, and you also know how to skate board. Listen, Richard, I’ll fly by tomorrow, I’ll fly you and your friends around the mountains, and then maybe you could get me some gelato and we’ll talk about what I’m getting Mom for her birthday.”

Resigned, Gansey sighed. Helen always knew how to break down enough walls to convince Gansey. “Fine. Just, don’t do anything embarrassing this time.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be able to get rid of your friends even if I showed them your National Geographic articles.”

Gansey sincerely doubted that.

“Goodbye, Helen, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you, Dick.”

He hung up and scrambled around for his contacts.

At least he had a plan now.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't do much of Adam's introspection for his insecurities after Fox Way, but I did somehow show a side of Adam that people forget sometimes: he isn't always a conflict for the group, and sometimes, he solves it with them.
> 
> That's something, right?
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, and my tumblr is [here](http://stubbornjerk.tumblr.com).


End file.
